Pee-Wee Harris on the Trail eBook

A long distance call to the New York police warned
them to be on the lookout. Blinksboro, on the
main road, did not answer. Knapp’s Crossroads
had gone to a harvest festival and forgotten to come
back. No answer. Lonehaven couldn’t
get the name of the car but said it would watch out
for a Plunkabunk. Wakeville said no car could
possibly get through there as there wasn’t any
road. Miss Dolly Bobbitt returned to her novel.

And meanwhile the scout raised a mighty hand up into
the vast, starry heaven, like some giant traffic cop....

“Pull that canvas cover off it,” said
Nick to his comrade who had just come up the ladder.
“The blamed thing’s all rotten anyway,
I guess. Strike a match and find where the switch
is. Look out you don’t slip in the hole.
Look at all the confetti and stuff,” he added
hurriedly, as the tiny flame of the match illuminated
a small area of the little cupola. “War’s
over, huh?”

There upon the floor were strewn the gay many-colored
little paper particles, plastered against the wood
by many a rain, mementos of the night when even West
Ketchem arose and poured this festive, fluttering
stuff down necks and into windows. Someone who
had thought to throw the search-light on the flag
across the street, had spilled some of insinuating
stuff in the little cupola. How old and stale,
and a part of the forgotten past, the war seemed!
And these once gay memorials of its ending were all
washed out and as colorless as the big spiders that
claimed the little cupola as their own. It smelled
musty up there. And whenever a match was lighted
the spiders started in their webs. A lonely bat,
settled for the winter, hung like an old stiff dishrag
from a beam.

“Did you find the switch?” Nick asked,
as he fumbled hastily with the big brass light.
“All right, wait till I point the lens down,
now turn it.”

There was no light.

“Did you turn it?”

“Sure.”

“Pull it out, maybe it works that way.”

There was no light, Norton paused in suspense while
Nick shook the brass case and jarred the wiring to
overcome a slight short circuit if there was any there.

“All right, turn it again.”

There was no light, and the two scouts stood baffled
and heavy hearted in the lonely darkness.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE MESSAGE

“I’m a dumb-bell!” said Nick in
a quick inspiration. “Go down and turn on
the main switch; it’s in a box on the wall in
the vestibule; just pull the handle down and push
it in below. We’ll never get any juice up
here with that turned off. Hurry up.”

Norton descended the ladder and with lighted matches
found his way to the vestibule where the switch-box
was. Here was the big switch on which all other
switches in the building depended. As he pulled
it down one lonely bulb in the meeting-room brightened
and cast a dim light in the musty, empty place.
It was evidently the only bulb in which the individual
switch was turned on. Norton went through the
meeting-room and turned this off. The place smelled
for all the world like a school-room.